The hook
The best-preserved medieval city in the Arab world, a vast walled medina of thousands of tangled car-free lanes where donkeys still carry the loads, artisans work as they have for centuries, and dyers stand waist-deep in vats of colour.
01Why it's worth it
Fès el-Bali, the old medina of Fès, is one of the largest car-free urban areas on earth and among the most complete medieval cities anywhere, a bewildering warren of narrow lanes, covered bazaars, fountains, and hidden squares packed inside its walls, where transport is still by foot and mule. It has been a centre of learning and craft for over a thousand years, home to al-Qarawiyyin, often cited as the oldest continuously operating university in the world, founded in 859. The senses take over here: the smells and sounds of the coppersmiths, weavers, and above all the famous tanneries, where hides are cured in honeycombs of coloured dye pits best viewed from a leather shop's terrace with a sprig of mint against the smell. It is easy to get hopelessly lost, which is part of the experience, though a guide helps the first time. Less touristed than Marrakech, it feels more genuinely medieval.
02How to experience it
Take a guide for your first foray into the medina to orient yourself, then get deliberately lost in the lanes. See the tanneries from a terrace, the gates of al-Qarawiyyin and the Bou Inania madrasa, and the artisans' workshops. Stay in a medina riad, and give it a couple of days.
From the locals
Solo travellers rank it near the top and tell you how to survive it: "the Imperial Cities of Rabat, Meknes, and — one of my highlights — Fes," one wrote. "The Fes medina is a huge maze and I'd recommend hiring a local guide there, both to walk you through it and also to ward off some of the people trying to sell you carpets. Eat pastilla in Fes, you won't regret it." Not everyone agrees, which is worth knowing: another traveller in the same thread said flatly, "I didn't find Fes that special, personally."